DRAW.CUT.BUILD

Recently I have been researching for my dissertation and found this project called DRAW.CUT.BUILD, it is built by Keita Tajima and Zhi Xiong Chang(two former students of the Architectural Association) in London. It utilises the same fabrication in model making as in the construction both being drawn on a computer. The model has been laser cut and the 1:1 components have been CNC cut. This digital fabrication has removed the need for representation in architecture. The model that Keita and Xiong built is essentially the same as the realised building.

A Defensive Architecture

A little late but I thought I'd post the winning entry from the 2009 RIBA presidents medals, all entries for the Bronze and Silver medals can be found at the RIBA's Presidents Medals Website it showcases a lot of really good student architecture work and has work dating back to 1998.

This is Nicholas Szczepaniak's winning entry from the University of Westminster London, UK. He has some sumptuous drawings, here is his tutors brief outline of the project.

All the images submitted for the Presidents Medals can be found here In his project, entitled 'A Defensive Architecture', Nick Szczepaniak has proposed an intense and thought-provoking piece of work that is a reflection of and response to the effects of climate change. The work is deliberately allegorical and provocative.

Set in the Blackwater Estuary, he imagines a set of austere and stark coastal defence towers that have multiple functions. Not only do the towers act as an environmental protection device that serves as a warning to mankind of the dangers that lies ahead, but they are also repositories of knowledge, housing a major collection of books, much like the British Library. These 'arks' are exquisitely explored in great detail through drawings and experimental models. The scheme is handled in a sensitive and thoughtful manner throughout.

Nick is an exceptionally talented and thoughtful student; he has finished the course at Westminster with a distinction in both design and dissertation, the latter written on the archaeological history of an abandoned Northern steelworks. All of his knowledge and talent comes together in this dramatic and superbly designed project.

The Brick Accumulator

This is a project I did in the fist year of my Diploma at Greenwich University it is called the Brick Accumulator, I previously posted it on a forum i regularly use called pushpullbar and the original discussion can be found here.

The Brick Accumulator.

The fort unruly, wayward, neglected for hundreds of years stands on the edge of the River Medway, incomplete from years of abuse, more recently teenagers have taken away bricks but the River Medway has always.

Wyllie a painter, his house Hoo lodge overlooks the Medway, he used bricks from the fort to repair his dining room. The fort is now distributed across the site, bricks strewn into the Medway, some removed by vandals, others by Wyllie. No one wishes to repair the fort, nor even hold it in a constant state, soon it will be no more.

Across a long bridge from the hill side you cross above the tree tops to reach the tower, inside the bricks from the fort are to be found collected and re-assembled as one again. Stored in conditions which replicate that of where they were found. The dark black bricks of the Medway emerged in water in a pool at the towers base, the better preserved bricks towards the top. The tower becomes the bricks new mortar.

Walkways cross the tower branching out from a staircase that transcends the tower allowing visitors to emerge themselves within the bricks. The staircase allows visitors to view the permanent collection on there way down.

The Permanent Collection.

Bricks, every type of brick imaginable will be kept here, archived by size, colour, shape, weight, condition and age. The will be stored in a shelf like location upon the walls of the tower, visitors after they have descended the tower can ask to see a brick and ‘the robot’ which organises and reorganises the collection will deliver one to the table at the base of the tower. Scurrying up the walls to find the brick removing it from its slot and placing it on the ‘reading’ table below for the visitor to inspect. Along with each brick is delivered its history and relevant information. The visitor is allowed to examine the brick before it is replaced within the archive.

The collection can be used for reference for people trying to reference a brick, find a certain type of brick or people researching a certain period in the history of bricks. This is a library of bricks if you like, however no bricks are loaned out.

The Temporary Collection

These hulks out in the Medway store the bricks and components of buildings which for whatever reason have been dismantled, arriving by boat they are help here until a new location can be found and the building reassembled, not accessible from the land visitors can only see the hulks from the shore.

The unruly fort and the hulk and towers in the distance.

The red dots indicate the location of the bricks.

Detail model of the wall

Please let me know what you think of this project